19 aug

Top Russian and US officials will meet in The Hague next week to discuss preparations for the international peace conference on Syria. That’s according to Russia’s deputy foreign minister.
“This meeting will take place in the middle of next week in The Hague,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.
The meeting will also involve Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy on the crisis, an unnamed Russian diplomatic source separately told news agency ITAR-TASS.
Neither Gatilov nor the diplomatic source disclosed which Russian and US officials would be meeting, nor the exact date of the talks.

The Syrian army has recaptured rebel-held positions in Latakia, home province of President Bashar al-Assad, state-run SANA news agency reported Monday quoting a military source.
”The army retook control of the Nabi Ashia mountain range and adjoining areas in the north of Latakia province,” the source said, of villages seized in early August by rebels trying to topple Assad.

The Syrian army says it has regained full control of the Latakia countryside

Father Paolo Dall’Oglio (s.j.) has indeed been executed by his ’’brothers’’ of the Islamic State in Iraq and in the Levant, three days ago, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), a branch of the Muslim Brothers, based in London under MI6 protection